


3 Lives

by Teahound



Series: a garden of thorns (Dream SMP one-shots) [3]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Dream has taken 2 of Tommy's three canon lives and I think that's interesting, Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28398270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teahound/pseuds/Teahound
Summary: Dream is Tommy's grim reaper, and he's coming to collect.
Series: a garden of thorns (Dream SMP one-shots) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058096
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	3 Lives

When Tommy dies the first time, he doesn’t see it coming. At the beginning of the war, death doesn’t feel real. Getting shot with an arrow, downing a potion, wrapping up battle-wounds in bandages, or more often, having Tubbo do it for him; it is all a routine. You get lucky enough, and you think you are invincible. Sapnap’s arrow misses your heart enough times that you feel secure even without the strongest of armor, or the most sturdy of weapons. 

That changes in the final control room. 

“It was never meant to be,” Eret says, and Tommy sees them emerging from all around like creatures from nightmares. It happens almost too fast to comprehend. He watches Sapnap shaving Tubbo against the wall, and then there’s a sword through his best friend’s heart, and he thinks nothing can hurt more, nothing can be worse than seeing Tubbo spilling across the ground. 

He’s wrong though because here is Dream. (Dream is Tommy Innit’s grim reaper. He is here to collect, and he’ll be back again.)

But Tommy doesn’t know that yet. He just sees the white mask leering forward, glittering blade swinging through the air and dragging sparks from the stone walls. He turns, tries to run, tries to retreat, tries to block out the chaotic, horrifying sounds of his dying friends (his family). 

He trips and falls on his stomach and he feels the blade tear him apart and he feels his blood hot and pouring from his body, fast, too fast, and then everything is light and dark, and Tommy feels himself pulled apart and stitched together again, and Tommy has died once. 

Now it feels real. 

Now that he’s died, he knows what he’s doing, when he places that second life on the table, his gamble for L’manburg. Tommy understands the stakes, just as well as he understands the reason behind the fear in Wilbur’s eyes. 

(Tommy is terribly young for someone missing a life.) (He’s far too young to lose two.)

He does it anyway. He stands on that path and feels Wilbur’s hand on his shoulder, and feels the creak of wooden boards beneath his feet, and listens as his General (his brother, his friend) chants out a countdown until _something_ happens. 

_Something_ is Dream’s arrow flying true, and Tommy’s disappearing into the green hills behind the man’s shoulder. _Something_ is a barbed point piercing his heart. He topples backward, and the last thing he remembers before he is taken is watching a stream of bubbles and blood float upwards through the water. 

(His grim reaper has already turned away, job so very nearly finished) 

(Tommy is terribly, terribly young for someone so close to death) 

********

He does not grow more cautious, not really. Tommy wears his heart on his sleeve and his life in his hands, and he offers it up again and again. His life for L’manburg, his life for Wilbur, for Tubbo, for vengeance and petty feuds and rivalries. Somehow, so close to the end at every turn, the boy does not fear. 

******

It’s not fear, exactly, that freezes his veins as the clouds drift around him. He sits, so high up that the world far far far below seems like an unreal plaything. Something broken and battered and worth leaving behind. 

Or maybe he’s talking about himself. 

The grim reaper, face ever-smiling, leans over his shoulder. He’s not there, in reality, but Tommy feels his eyes over his shoulder and his words leeching like poison through his mind. 

Alone. 

Alone.

Watched. Tommy Innit has never feared death, not really. 

There are better things to be afraid of.

Things like monsters under your bed, and waking up alone, and never seeing your best friend again, and never going home. And then, he realizes, things like Dream. Things like the grim reaper. You can’t mourn losing a friend who was never your friend to begin with.

Tommy falls. No. Tommy _flies_. He soars downwards, landing with a splash in painfully chilly water, coughing. (Part of Tommy dies that day too. He tries, at least, to uproot whatever fearful, choking vine Dream had planted in him. Crushing it beneath his foot, he runs.) 

(Tommy is too young, and he’s died too many deaths.) 

But this time, he’s going to live. 


End file.
